


moons that work by switches

by queerwatson



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-03 11:27:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1743071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerwatson/pseuds/queerwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paris, 1925. Jane Watson is a struggling writer, seven years after being an ambulance driver in the war. With her brother and her parents dead, and just enough money to her name because of it, she goes to Paris - that is where writers go, after all. It's there that she meets Sherlock Holmes - the most beautiful woman she's ever seen, who also happens to be a dancer - and maybe also something close to a detective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [against_stars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/against_stars/gifts).



> Title credit to Edna St. Vincent Millay, as it often is.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane meets Sherlock.

Going to Paris was the thing to do; that was what everyone told her. She was a writer, after all, and all the writers these days went to Paris. It took some time, because Jane had never been very well off, but when Harry died, the money he hadn’t spent on alcohol and drugs was hers. Sad and adrift, she had taken what was left of her inheritance from her parents, combined it with Harry’s money and the little she made, and gone to France.

Even during the war, she’d never been to France. Maybe that was strange, maybe it wasn’t, but somehow she’d ended up in the Middle East once she volunteered to be an ambulance driver. It didn’t seem like the place to be at the time, but she’d seen first hand that she helped, so she took that for what it was worth. She’d seen men die first hand as well, watched the life fade from their eyes, and she knew exactly why so many men wrote about the war - and she hadn’t even been in the middle of it, even if she had been shot.

Usually nobody guessed she’d been shot, and she wasn’t prone to telling. One of the boys she’d been carrying to an ambulance had still had a gun in his hand, and thinking he’d been closer to enemy lines, when he was moved, he fired. It hit Jane right in the shoulder. After that they got the gun away from him and took both of them back to the field hospital.

She didn’t remember anything until about a week afterwards, when she’d woken up and been reminded what happened.

That was seven years behind her now, though, and at the ripe age of 28, she was finally on her way to Paris.

It was strange at first, getting used to the little differences there. She didn’t know anyone, but she hadn’t known anyone much in London since she’d gotten back anyhow so she may as well have been one place as the other.

After a bit she learned a little French and started figuring out the places where people went, and she made a point to go there, too. She didn’t speak to many people, but she hoped maybe someone would start to recognize her face and she’d get invited somewhere. Of course, much to her dismay, that didn’t happen. She did, though, after a bit, meet Sherlock, and maybe that turned out just as well.

It was a night in the middle of the week - she’d been trying to write again and getting nowhere, so she went out. The first club she came to, she went in and ordered herself a glass of wine. She sat down and got comfortable before she realized there were live performers - a couple of singers, right now, a man on the piano. They were good. She sipped her wine, closed her eyes, and didn’t open them again except for the occasional brief glance until they announced the next act. As it was, she was glad she did.

The woman on the stage was absolutely beautiful, all long limbs and pale skin and it was only emphasized by the dress she wore. Black and asymmetrical, but most of it was sheer or lace. There was material underneath in parts, but so much of her skin was visible, and her collarbones were completely exposed the way the neckline fell. Jane picked up her glass and finished it off in practically only one more swallow. She had a feeling that she needed to be a little closer to drunk for this.

Of course, she was right. She’d never seen a dancer so elegant as… Sherlock? Was that what they’d said her name was? Surely not. Still, it didn’t make any sense, the way she moved - she practically glided. Her entire body moved with a fluidity Jane struggled to describe. Really, though, something about her just made Jane want to write until her fingers were stiff. Write poem after song after whatever else she could get on paper that might even come close to expressing some of the ridiculous things she would say or do to get this woman closer to her. Not even necessarily in her bed or on a date, just… closer.

After her act was over, Jane went outside in the hopes of catching her breath. Still when she closed her eyes, Sherlock’s arched form was all she saw, but the air smelled faintly like other women’s perfume and summer and alcohol, and it helped.

At least it helped until an overly familiar long-limbed figure leaned against the wall next to her, and a low, smooth voice asked her for a light. Knowing she’d fumble her words if she tried to speak just then, Jane just reached into her purse and pulled out her lighter. Sherlock thanked her, and held her cigarette in its holder up to her lips, taking a long inhale before Jane took her lighter back and their fingers brushed.

Feeling like she could speak English again, she said, “I caught your act.”

One of Sherlock’s eyebrows rose. “You’re not French.”

Jane flushed at the tips of her ears, but then realized that Sherlock spoke with an English accent as well. “Neither are you.”

A smirk. That wasn’t even a little bit fair. “No, I’m not.”

“You’re good, you know.” Another raised eyebrow. “At dancing, I mean. I’ve never seen anything like it. You’re like… watching poetry.”

“Mm. It’s hardly that impressive. It took some training, more training than people usually want to put in, but there have been better dancers.”

“Not that I’ve ever seen.”

Everything was silent. Sherlock took another drag of her cigarette.

“You were in the Iraq, in the war.”

Jane nearly choked on her own breath. “Sorry, what?”

One corner of Sherlock’s mouth twitched up. “Your lighter is clearly engraved with the symbol of the unit you drove ambulances for - it’s weathered from sand, too. Not a lot of places in the war with that much sand. Not a lot of places British ambulance drivers were assigned, especially, that also had that much sand. The dates, on your lighter. It all lines up.”

“So you… you just figured that out?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re a dancer.”

There was a huff of an exhale, and smoke curled from Sherlock’s lips. “I’m not just a dancer, I have hobbies, outside interests. Things I do during the day. Just like you’re a writer.”

Narrowing her eyes a little, Jane turned to look properly at Sherlock. “You didn’t figure that out from my lighter.”

“No, but you have a writer’s callus on your left middle finger, a bit of ink there, and your fingers have the shape of someone who uses a typewriter rather often. It’s obvious that you haven’t been writing much lately, though. You tried today, hence the ink, but it wasn’t worthy of typing up. Surprising, since so many people find the war such good material. And you’ve even been shot.”

Eyes widening, Jane looked over at her own shoulder like it didn’t belong to her. “How could you know that?”

“The way you handle your arm. It’s still stiff. You’re still not entirely past trying to use it like you used to, like you could before it was injured. Also a bit of the scar peeks out from the sleeve of your dress - and I’ve studied far too many scars to not recognize one from a bullet wound even when I see just part of it. There’s no reason to act like it’s anything to be ashamed of.”

She thought about arguing, but she really didn’t know Sherlock very well, and she didn’t want to go through the process of explaining how men weren’t very fond of a girl that had such evidence of the butch things she’d done. To dress to a little more boyish because it was fashionable was one thing - to have been shot? That was something completely different. Her brother hadn’t let her hear the end of it until he’d died.

“I guess I just don’t see it as anything to be proud of either. Still, do you actually have a job that you use this for, or is it just a hobby? Or a party trick, or whatever you want to call it.”

Sherlock scoffed. “Well I’m certainly not going to call it a party trick. Honestly.” She flicked her cigarette out of its holder, and stamped it out under her heel. “It’s taken more than a bit of hard work. Observation was a natural talent, but I needed the information behind it or everything I notice is useless. Still, it is more of a hobby than a job. Not very many people take me seriously when I use it to give them any kind of advice.”

“You’d be a good detective,” Jane said with something like a smile.

“Women don’t make good detectives,” Sherlock replied, her tone just hollow enough that Jane could tell she was quoting someone else - someone that had told Sherlock that as a response to a proposed idea.

Jane shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think men make very good detectives, but that’s just me.”

Smiling, Sherlock pushed off of the wall and looked Jane in the eye. “Nowhere near observant enough most of the time, that’s true. Not to mention that they’re entirely ignorant.” She put out her hand. “I’m Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes.” It was Sherlock, then.

“Jane Watson.”

They shook, and Sherlock turned to go back inside. She glanced over her shoulder from the door, and it was a moment like something out of a painting - standing in a Parisian alleyway in the moonlight, a beautiful woman with a cigarette holder still dangling from her fingers, looking back.

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Watson.” She went back inside, and Jane slumped against the wall, a smile on her face. Lines of poetry skittered through her mind, but still nothing stuck. There was something undeniably special about Sherlock, but Jane didn’t quite have the words to describe it yet. She wished she could have asked Sherlock when they could meet again… When she was performing again, something. Anything, really. But instead she walked home in a daze, and maybe it was just her hopeless romanticism talking but she felt like they were going to meet again - even in spite of Jane’s inability to get her words across without writing them down.

Still knowing she didn’t quite have the right words, she went home and wrote. And wrote, and wrote, and wrote. It wasn’t perfect - it wasn’t even incredible, but she was writing again, and she was smiling and flushing and she hadn’t even had anything to drink except that one glass of wine.

It probably wasn’t a very good sign when she went to bed and slipped her hand under her pants, rocking into her own fingers and picturing ones that were far paler and more slender - that belonged to that lean, pale body, with legs that went on for days. She came with a gasp of Sherlock’s name, and she laid there panting, wondering how she’d look the other woman in the eye without flushing. It’d been a problem even before the fantasy, though, so maybe it hadn’t made a difference. Jane hadn’t met anyone she’d found this attractive since she’d come to Paris.

There’d been men and women on the street she thought were nice-looking, but Sherlock… Sherlock was intoxicating. Everything about her seemed to reach out and pull Jane in, dangerous as that might have been since she barely knew the woman at all.

Or maybe it wasn’t dangerous. It was entirely possible Jane just had a bad case of an overactive imagination. She curled up under her sheets and tried to sleep, making note of the day of the week so that she could try and catch Sherlock again, whether it was her performance or someone else’s. To not see that woman again would be a crime.

The problem with introductions, though, is that no matter how much of an effect they leave, they don’t guarantee a second meeting. After a week, no matter how she tried, Jane hadn’t run into Sherlock again. She’d gone back to the same club and lingered a while, watching performers come and go - it got to the point where she wondered if Sherlock had only been visiting, and had left Paris completely.

Then, a few days after that thought had crossed her mind, she was invited to some party by Mickey Stamford - they’d been nurses together, once, and Jane had run headlong into her in a restaurant. She didn’t know who’d be hosting the party, but Mickey seemed to know them, so she wasn’t too worried about it. To only be one person removed from the host wasn’t so bad.

She went to the party all dolled up hoping to run into an editor or another writer that she could talk to. If it came to it, she had a few things she could pitch and then clean up a little.

The decorations and the party itself seemed to glitter upon first sight. The sequined dresses that reflected all the light in the room, the champagne that looked almost like liquid gold at the right angle - it all seemed so untouched and untouchable, but Jane knew from experience it wouldn’t stay that way for long.

Still, in the dreamy glamorous setting of a high-class party just begun, it didn’t seem as odd as it probably should have for Jane to find herself looking right as Sherlock when she glanced over at the wall, and find her staring right back. Jane waved a bit, flushed, and went over to her, weaving her way through conversations and toasts, people nearly sloshing their champagne onto her head.

Once she’d made it over, and she’d evened out a little, Jane spoke. “Didn’t expect to run into you here.”

“I could say the same to you.” Sherlock nursed her own glass of champagne, and smirked. “Why are you here?”

“Mickey Stamford invited me. We-“

“Were nurses together, before the war.”

“…Right.” Jane opened her mouth to ask, but then closed it again and smiled. If Sherlock knew anything about Mickey, maybe that wasn’t so hard to figure out. “What about you?”

Sherlock rolled her eyes. “Very nearly forced by my sister, who also happens to be the host. I’m using the opportunity to practice my skills.”

It was obvious Sherlock didn’t mean her dance skills. Jane nodded and looked around. “Suppose it’d be good for that. So many people. But… you know, I don’t even know who your sister is.”

“You’re better off that way.” She moved next to Jane, leaning against the wall. “Do you know anyone else here? I assume I should ask before I start telling you what I’ve figured out.”

“Not even a bit. Go ahead.”

Smirking conspiratorially, Sherlock leaned close to Jane, all but whispering in her ear. “See that man ducking his head close to his jacket?” Jane nodded, and tried not to think about the feeling of warm breath brushing just by her cheek. “He’s keeping a bird inside. It’s tucked into his inner pocket - he keeps sneaking it bits of food and whispering to it. It’s also why he keeps dancing alone.”

She gave Sherlock a skeptical look, but then the man walked by them towards the dance floor and Jane heard him saying something quiet about someone having the most beautiful feathers, and she giggled a little, hand over her mouth. Not that it was funny, really, she was just so surprised - and really, still impressed by what an eye Sherlock had.

Sherlock smiled at her, and Jane grinned back. “Who else, then?”

“That couple by the piano?” It took her a moment, but Jane placed them and nodded. “They came here together, budding relationship, obvious by how much they’re both blushing. What they don’t know is that judging from their earlobes and other barely noticeable signs of genetic connection, they’re at least half-siblings.”

Oh, that was awful. Still, Jane found herself giggling helplessly, trying to resist the urge to press her face against Sherlock’s shoulder as she did so.

They spent a good portion of the night that way - Sherlock pointing out strange and interesting quirks of the people dancing or talking or drinking and Jane being consistently impressed and reduced to giggling like a guilty schoolgirl.

Eventually the crowd started to thin, and they turned to each other. “You know, I almost thought you’d left Paris. I hadn’t seen you again.”

With an elegant sip from her glass, Sherlock shrugged. “I hadn’t felt like dancing. They pay me enough I don’t have to do it when I don’t want to. I spent most of the past couple of weeks lying in bed. My sister thinks it’s unhealthy.” There was an obvious tone of sarcasm in her last sentence, but still, the fact that Sherlock seemed to be as unoccupied as Jane was gave her an idea - she’d never felt so inspired as she was with Sherlock, and she’d been thinking of taking a train on a short trip even before they’d met just to write and look at the scenery.

“You know I’ve been planning a sort of writing trip for a while now. If you don’t have anything better to do, we could take a train south and share a car. Might be more interesting than lying in bed.”

It was true that really, Jane hardly knew Sherlock, but it seemed unlikely that anything awful would happen to her. If it turned out they didn’t get along for long periods of time, Jane would just know in the future, and maybe she could get over this ridiculous crush.

For whatever reason, Sherlock agreed, after only a raised eyebrow and a moment of thought. The idea was spontaneous, of course, so arrangements still had to be made - they exchanged methods of reaching one another, and parted again, with only a nod and a wave to Jane’s slight (and to her own mind ridiculous) disappointment.

This time, though, Jane had the promise of seeing Sherlock again - as soon as she got the details of their train trip sorted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to go ahead and admit this will probably update EXTREMELY slowly - but I promise that I will finish it. This is the first chaptered fic I've done in a very, very long time, but it's really going to be something, I think.
> 
> Also! Apologies for any potential historical inaccuracies? I have done some research, but I admit not loads. I can't, for example, say there were female ambulance drivers in Iraq in the first world war, but there were British troops there, so I took a little creative license.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and Jane take a train trip. Hopefully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy! Remember this? Well. Probably not. Anyways, I did promise that I wouldn't forget this story, and the promise was genuine. Here's chapter two, if anyone still wanted it. Chapter three will not take another more than a year, I promise.

It was by telephone that Jane and Sherlock had agreed to get in touch, so once Jane had gotten the tickets for the overnight train trip south, she went to the phone and called Sherlock.

They had quickly arranged - as Jane’s phone was a public access phone, with the possibility of people waiting - to meet there with plenty of time before departure, so that they could both get settled in and get to talk a bit before the train left the station. It was a short conversation, and it all seemed simple enough, at the time.

The trouble came when Jane was at the station, dressed and packed, and the train was scheduled to leave within just a few minutes. She had no way of getting in touch with Sherlock before the train left. There she stood with both tickets in her hand, hovering awkwardly at the gate, and she had no way of making sure Sherlock would get there at all. It had been preposterous, obviously, to trust a woman she’d only met twice with a time sensitive meeting to get on a train and go on an elaborate trip. The only excuse Jane had was her own nearly obsessive attraction. It should have embarrassed her, how often she’d thought of Sherlock while they’d been apart again.

All sorts of thoughts had flitted through Jane’s dreams and invaded her mind while she sat at a typewriter with a blank sheet of paper. She’d thought of the shape of Sherlock’s hands, her long delicate fingers. She’d thought of the way Sherlock’s blue-green-grey eyes and dark hair had looked when the moonlight shone in them. She’d thought of Sherlock laughing, her head thrown back, a glass of champagne in her hand, the golden light of the party all around them.

Jane could have stood right in place and missed her train dwelling on all those thoughts all over again except that Sherlock arrived at the precise moment of the last call for boarding, flushed and disheveled, and grabbed Jane’s wrist to pull her onto the platform.

When they reached their compartment, the train was already pulling out of the station. Sherlock was smiling sheepishly at Jane.

“I got very caught up in what I was doing. I owe you an apology. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d gotten on without me. Still, I very much appreciate that you didn’t. Let me get you something in the dining car later to make up for it.”

Her composure was perfect, and still Jane was enchanted. It was impossible to say no. “It’s alright. What were you doing?”

Surprisingly, Sherlock looked almost embarrassed. “I was doing an experiment of a sort. Finding how particular chemicals interact with certain textiles, taking notes. Another hobby.”

“That’s the sort of stuff that lets you do those little portraits of people you were giving me at the party, isn’t it? You know all sorts of little details like that and then you can notice them on other people.”

“Yes.” Sherlock smiled at her properly. Jane felt almost like she’d done something impressive. She hoped she’d at least impressed Sherlock a bit either way.

A comfortable silence stretched between them while they got all their things settled into their compartment, and then when they both seemed to have finished, Sherlock suggested again that they go to the dining car, at least for a few drinks. Jane accepted with a smile, and off they went.

Just a couple of gin rickeys turned into a shared bottle of wine which turned into a few whiskey sours. Soon enough Jane could see the sun setting outside the train window and she was feeling loose and giggly - she could tell Sherlock was clearly completely zozzled.

They ordered a bottle of champagne and took it back to their compartment. Jane made certain Sherlock didn’t lose her balance on the way back, and helped her flop onto the bed once they were there.

Once she’d gotten Sherlock and the champagne settled into the compartment, she went to the restroom and made her way back. When she did come back in, Sherlock looked terrible.

“You okay?” she asked quietly, sitting on her own bed.

“Jane. I don’t feel well at all. I think I’m ill.”

If Sherlock didn’t drink much very often, it was hardly a surprise if she was feeling ill. “Just nauseous? I can clear out the champagne bucket if you think you’ll need-“

“No, no! Not that sort of ill, proper ill. I think I’m congested. I feel feverish. I think I’ve got congestion of the lungs.”

Jane quietly raised her eyebrows and stood up. She reached over and placed a hand on Sherlock’s forehead, checking her temperature. With Jane having had more than her fair share of experience with illness and fevers, she could tell that Sherlock wasn’t any warmer than any drunk person should be. The warmth, and the feeling ill, it was all just because Sherlock had a bit too much to drink.

“I think you’ll be alright,” she said with a slight smile.

Sherlock shook her head and waved a hand as if to shoo her away. “You don’t know! You don’t know if I’m ill, how would you know?”

If she had been sober, Jane might have been offended. Instead she just giggled. “Have you forgotten I was a nurse?”

“You’re just an English nurse.”

This time Jane tried valiantly not to laugh, and she actually succeeded. She kept her face serious and perched on the bed next to Sherlock. “I wasn’t just a nurse in England, I was also a nurse in the war. In Iraq. Remember?”

Again, a long hand flapped in her direction. “That doesn’t count, none of that matters, I’ve got tropical congestion of the lungs, it’s a horrible tropical disease and you wouldn’t know anything about it.”

“When was the last time you were in the tropics?” She couldn’t keep the smile out of her voice that time.

“You don’t have to go to the tropics to get it! You just, you just get it. I just know, I know that I have it, and there’s no hope for me, Jane, certainly not you. I’m dying.”

Jane grinned. “You’re dying now?”

Sherlock sat up quickly, then got visibly dizzy and flopped back again. “Yes, yes, I’m dying. I’m dying, Jane, I’ve ruined your trip, I’m sorry. We’ll have to… Have to do… something.”

It looked like Sherlock had lost her train of thought, so Jane took the opportunity to pour another glass of champagne. She’d had an idea. “Sherlock, Sherlock. You’ll be fine. It was very good, that you noticed the symptoms. I read something… in a medical journal the other week. Tropical medical journal. If you get just absolutely roaring drunk, it can… help kill off the virus. So have some more champagne, yeah? We’ll both have some more champagne, and everything will be fine.”

She watched as Sherlock narrowed her eyes, but the other woman took the glass nonetheless. “Are you sure? I don’t remember anything about that.”

“I’m sure.”

Jane lifted her own glass and helped Sherlock sit up a bit, and then they clinked their glasses together and both took a sip. While she was still sipping, Jane stood up and moved over to her own bed, to give Sherlock some more room - and because being too close to her and being this drunk seemed dangerous.

It probably should have put her off, all this ridiculous stuff, Sherlock crying out that she was dying of tropical congestion of the lungs. Instead of being annoyed, though, Jane just kept finding parts of it endearing. The insistent tone of voice, the way she’d tried to sit up too quickly, the fact that Sherlock was such an obvious lightweight. It was all just more material for the growing hopeless infatuation Jane was experiencing.

“Didn’t you say you were doing all this for a writing trip? I know you’re a writer. What do you write about?”

Sherlock’s voice pulled Jane from her thoughts, and she looked over. Sherlock was sitting up, facing Jane, and her legs were stretched out towards Jane’s bed. Jane moved her own legs so that one foot was resting beside Sherlock. She still had her stockings on, but Sherlock had apparently taken hers off while Jane had been gone earlier. Her feet were bare against the carpeted floor.

“I write about lots of things,” Jane said. “I haven’t written in a long time, like you figured out, but I don’t really just write one thing. I write poetry sometimes, I write stories other times. I like adventure stories, detective stories, stuff like that, but I don’t have a lot of exciting plot material to work with or inspire me. Everyone writes about the war, I want to do something different. And I don’t know why people want to dwell on all that enough to write about it in the first place. I get that it’s good material, I do, it’s just not for me. I couldn’t do it.”

The expression on Sherlock’s face was strange, her nose wrinkled. “Well you could, but so much… so much of writing is just drivel. So sentimental, poetry especially. I bet you write terrible romance poetry about… about men and dates and things.”

That stung a little, and Jane flushed beyond just the flush she’d kept from drinking. “No, I don’t really write about men I’ve been with.” She looked down at the carpet, and put down her drink, losing interest in it. “You don’t like any of that, then? Romance or dating or poetry?”

“I never said I don’t like poetry,” Sherlock muttered. “I just think my work is more important. Facts are more important, and more interesting. And dates and men and all of that is just awful, everything I’ve ever had to do in relation to it is awful. I don’t know how there are people that like any of it.”

“It can be nice sometimes,” Jane said weakly.

Sherlock only hummed in response, and Jane started to feel like a complete idiot. She’d been a little embarrassed by her attraction to Sherlock before, but now knowing that Sherlock had an active disdain for all of it just made her feel pathetic.

After she’d spent some time beating herself up, she looked up and realized that Sherlock had fallen asleep. She had one arm under her head, the other dangling off her bunk, her cheeks still flushed and her hair wild - and it was the most beautiful Jane had ever seen her. In fact, in that moment, she was so breathtaking that it ached just a little to look at her too long.

The night they’d met, and the next time at the party, Sherlock had worn tights and makeup and had styled her curls meticulously. Now, her lipstick had long smudged off on the bottle and glasses she’d been drinking from, and she only had on her dress. Jane could see all sorts of things up close like this - the dark, downy hairs on her legs, the freckles on her shoulders, the apparently actual perfect cupid’s bow of her lips, the halo of frizz around her dark curls. This was dangerous - far more dangerous even than smoking with Sherlock in an alleyway. Those were the sorts of details you could notice on a person and fall in love.

If the crush had left her feeling pathetic, now she knew she was really in trouble. Flushing again, even though no one could see her, Jane turned so that she had her back to the room and put her hands over her face. Obviously she couldn’t do anything about the way she felt, and she hadn’t been planning to act on it anyways. None of this changed the fact that Sherlock was excellent inspiration, either. She’d just walk cautiously, be reasonable, keep boundaries, and she’d still be able to spend time with Sherlock and get to know her better. Maybe she could even look forward to them becoming friends.

It took her a long time to fall asleep, but eventually she managed, trying not to dream about long, delicate fingers or blue-green-grey eyes or anything else she shouldn’t be thinking of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit here - I've shamelessly taken the idea of Sherlock drunkenly declaring she's dying when she and Jane barely know each other from a story in Ernest Hemingway's memoirs that supposedly happened when he and Scott Fitzgerald barely knew each other. Scott was the one who insisted he was dying, of course. It's a very entertaining story, and I haven't really done it justice at all, but I couldn't help nicking it for my own 20s story. Anything else from here out though will probably just be nicked from Holmes canon - and the tropical bit of this and Sherlock's disdain for Jane's nursing skills were directly inspired by The Dying Detective.


End file.
